Classic Poem

The Pea Patch Island gems the throat
Of Delaware, whose bosom, then,
Swells many a yarded ship and boat
Past ocean beaches of Port Penn,
Where came a tired boy to swim
In summer, by the still hotel,
And hid him in the sedgy rim,
Lest some disaster him befell.

A maiden came, her limbs to swathe;
Alone she walked into the bay.
The boy then ventured in to bathe
And close behind the damsel play.
She was so prim she spied not him,
Her form her clinging garments hid,
And, unrevealed each lengthened limb,
Her mild eye lifted scarce its lid.

He heard her sigh: “Some one to love!
I am heart-hungry, lacking one:
Tender affections in me move;
I would, by one unloved, be won!”
Then, turned her face, the boy she saw,
Blushed like the peaches ripening by,
He thought her plain and he, so raw,
He also blushed, nor made reply.

Something admiring in her look
Suffused the boy with flushed respect,
As if he read some serious book
That turned his heart to intellect.
The dear occasion tarried by;
Almost their courage broke their spell;
She looked him full with loving eye—
Then vanished in the still hotel.

Down to the beach a rainbow came
That flashed a spectrum full of dyes
All clothed with coquetry and flame
And dazzled in the bather's eyes;
“Come! bathe me, boy! the bay is drear,
Unless thou float me like my beau!
My name is Venus: never fear!
And never from me canst thou go.”

Upon his hand she languorous lay,
The sunny surf inspired their blood,
Her dark eyes tender lightnings play,
Her spring time form was in its bud;
His soul matured into its noon:
Calm evening came not in his life
With patient vigil like the moon,
When Venus was the bather's wife.